The play PIÑA, written and directed by Adrián Jiménez Brais, premiered in 2019 at the Universidad de Costa Rica as part of the program Jóvenes Dirigiendo and has now been published in No. 33 (2023) of Repertorio Americano, journal of the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, thanks to the efforts of Susanne Schlünder, among others.
Inspired by the German expressionist drama GAS I (1917/18) by Georg Kaiser, PIÑA projects the current repercussions of intensive pineapple farming into a future, where large-scale pineapple cultivation has led to an inhospitable climate and widespread pollution in Costa Rica.
As part of the interdisciplinary seminar “Humans – Environment – Culture: Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Costa Rica” (Winter 22/23) students of the Osnabrück University worked on pineapple farming in Costa Rica and in this context also discussed PIÑA, expressing desire to read the play. One student consequently contacted Adrián Jiménez Brais who, very generously, provided the manuscript of his work.
After PIÑA also aroused interest at a round table during the XXIII. Congress of the German Association of Hispanists on ‘contaminated existences’, Susanne Schlünder inquired about possible avenues of publication. Thanks to the dedicated mediation of Gabriel Baltodano (Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica) contact with the editorial committee of Repertorio Americano was established and the play was finally published.
No. 33 (2023) of Repertorio Americano can be accessed here.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons. No changes made. CC-BY-SA 4.0.
